Posted on 08/30/2007 8:28:09 AM PDT by Froufrou
A woman who complained that some fellow passengers spoke Arabic and "had odd behavior" prevented a Chicago-bound American Airlines flight from departing San Diego, police said Wednesday.
Flight 590, scheduled to depart at 11 p.m. Tuesday, left its gate about 11:15 but returned to the boarding area after the woman, who was traveling with at least one child, indicated she wanted to get off the airplane. The flight then was unable to make Lindbergh Field's 11:30 p.m. curfew for departures, said Irene McCormack, a spokeswoman for the San Diego Harbor Police.
The flight, carrying 126 passengers, was rescheduled for midmorning Wednesday and arrived in Chicago in the afternoon, an American Airlines spokesman said.
McCormack said it is unusual for planes to return to the gate. She said it's usually for medical and mechanical problems or a disturbance.
The woman first complained to the flight crew that four to seven men were possibly speaking Arabic in the boarding area. The woman added that they "had odd behavior." The crew decided to return to the boarding area because the woman indicated she wanted off the plane.
The American Airlines spokesman indicated the plane returned to its gates because of a dispute between passengers. The spokesman didn't provide details on the dispute.
A Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said it returned because of "suspicious activity on board the plane."
Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago, was upset about the airline's actions. He said television reporters told him that six Iraqi Americans were detained after a passenger became uncomfortable with the men speaking Arabic.
"It is one thing to flag suspicious behavior, but to flag a global language? We are deplaning people for who they are, not what they do," Rehab said.
The Associated Press reported Defense Training Systems had hired the men to train U.S. Marines at Camp Pendleton in California.
McCormack said no one was detained in the incident.
And just how many languages do you propose everyone learn based on that logic?
And why just Arabic?
English is spoken worldwide. French is the international language.
LOL. Gotta’ love it!
I hope the kids in NYC got their meal for free, at least, after that little snafu.
Knuckle Dragger and proud! ®
I'll think of you when I travel Saturday...
Great point!
Their leaders (and cowards) are usually well-educated and speak English better than I.
The cannon-fodder, on the other hand, generaly can be barely literate in their own language.
So yes, inability to speak English is an excellent benchmark, whatever you wish to call it: profiling or survival common sense.
A little caution beats dead any day in my book.
Someone posted the arabic speaking gentlemen were on their way to train Marines at Camp Pendleton, CA. Let’s assume these were reasonably intelligent Iraqi-Americans. If so, why—given the times we are living in—would these people call attention to themselves by speaking in Arabic?
Hey, life isn’t fair. In any case, by blending in they would have avoiding the inconvenience and embarrassment of returning to the gate. You know the old saw—”when in Rome do as the Romans do”. Why is that so difficult?
Does anybody remember back in the 60s and 70s when Europeans belittled Americans for being loud, obnoxious and not making an attempt to learn the local language. In fact, there was a book written about it titled “The Ugly American”.
I grew up hearing two languages in my family. One on each side. And yes, they DID speak it in front of us kids precisely because they knew we didn’t understand it.
That way they could talk about all the family dirt without us knowing.
IMO, in this day and age, any ME looking men who speak a ME language in an airport or on a plane, deserve what they get. English may be difficult for some of them, although it shouldn’t be for someone who’s an American. But if they’re fluent in English, or can even carry on a conversation with the flight attendant, it behooves them to use English to demonstrate that they have nothing to hide.
They can practice their language at home, or in their own communities, where people can understand them. Doing it on a plane is not the brightest idea going.
And for anyone ready to flame me, if I knew I was going to be spending any significant time in a foreign country, I WOULD learn as much of the language as I could and use it.
I have never been in the military, but I travel enough, and my experience among private business has been the opposite, at least so once in the foreign country. On Air France we would speak French; on American carriers, English.
I actually have quite a bit of concern over things that I see, but they are based on something more than language. When I found out from a friend that Mohammed Atta was on our dock at the marina scoping out the nearby naval base in the Spring of 2001, it made me realize that anything is possible. I'm simply saying that language alone should not have been a suspicious behavior. I'm wondering what else was going on.
“English is spoken worldwide.”
While English is widely spoken, I’ve been a number of places where nobody spoke English.
Good to know. I appreciate that there may very well be two Arabic-speaking good Muslims for every terrorist. It’s telling them apart that’s the problem.
Two of the terrorists trained as pilots in my city and lived within 2 miles of my house. Yeah.
Many of those places are on jobsites in the USA
If I tried to tell my wife and child to be brave and board, both my bothers would kick my a$$. Then my Dad would kick my a$$. Then my mom, oh, I don’t even want to think about that. Everyone in our family knows you don’t mess with Grandma.
Grandma knows people. If you try to hurt someone in Grandma’s family, bad things happen to you. One time when I was a kid, maybe 14. She gave me money to go buy some new shoes. They fell apart but the store wouldn't give me my money back. Grandma went down to the store and had a screaming fit. The store finally gave me a new pair of shoes. Two weeks later the store burned to the ground. Now I’m not saying . . . I’m just saying, mess with Grandma’s family and bad things happen.
And believe me, if Grandma thought I hurt one of her grand kids; concrete galoshes. Kappish?
“Does anybody remember back in the 60s and 70s when Europeans belittled Americans”
You bet. And I still tried to speak the language when in Europe. It’s only the French who get huffy if one mispronounces [luckily I didn’t.]
Most Germans are cold to visitors and they feel that Americans are wasteful. The Swiss and Austrians were more hospitable.
Well, our experiences differ.
This "little caution" resulted in 126 people being unable to make their flight to Chicago. Think about that. 126 people (well, 125 not counting the woman) whose flight plans had to be changed because one woman thought she detected suspicious behavior. Suspicious behavior that doesn't appear to be confirmed by any other passengers.
Now, this is not big deal for people who never fly but for those of us who fly often and depend on making our connecting flights, being picked up at the airports at certain times, and checking into our reserved hotels, actions like this are a pretty big inconvenience.
I have to fly again this weekend. I certainly hope nobody panics if, perhaps, some Arabs board the plane. Heaven forfend they engage each other in their native language. Should the statistically infinitesimal event of a hijacking take place, I have faith that myself and many of the other passengers will defend ourselves.
Are there pictures of the towelheads?
I agree.
Perhaps if the woman had heard this Arabic in the boarding area she should have decided not to board the plane in the first place instead of boarding and then deciding she wanted back off. Nice job inconveniencing so many travelers, lady.
>>The woman first complained to the flight crew that four to seven men were possibly speaking Arabic in the boarding area. The woman added that they “had odd behavior.” The crew decided to return to the boarding area because the woman indicated she wanted off the plane.<<
Its hard to evaluate this without knowing what the “odd” behavior was.
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